


Safety In Numbers

by EnchantedHuntress



Series: A Balancing Act ~ Derek.Stiles.Allison [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Allison Feels, Allison Lives, Alpha Derek Hale, Angst with a Happy Ending, Derek Feels, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Multi, OT3, Post-Season/Series 02, Post-Season/Series 02 AU, Pre-OT3, Pre-Relationship, Protective Allison, Protective Derek, Protective Stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2018-08-19 04:36:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8190346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnchantedHuntress/pseuds/EnchantedHuntress
Summary: Sometimes the past overwhelms Derek and Allison. Stiles tries his best to convince them they are different than their minds want them to believe. Maybe pushing each other away isn't the answer.





	

She didn’t lift her head from atop her bent knees as she heard him approach. He sighed softly and crossed over to sit next to her on the window seat. He pulled his legs up and wrapped his arms around them mimicking her posture as he stared out at the storm. She waited for a few minutes expecting him to talk but he remained silent.

“It’s my fault…all of this.” She rasped into the tense air, her voice shattering the stillness of the dark room with its broken tones. He turned and looked at her with a burning intensity in his whiskey eyes for a long moment before he blinked and it was gone.

“If that’s what you want to believe.” He replied softly leaning his head back against the wall.

“Stiles…” she murmured but she didn’t know what else to say.

“Ally,” he replied mocking her tone of voice with a sad upturn of his lips. “I can’t force you to believe anything. You’re too stubborn for that.”

Shaking his head he got a sad faraway look in his eyes before swallowing heavily. “I seem to collect friends with those qualities—stubborn and strong with massive guilt complexes.”

Allison blinked against the burning of her eyes as tears once again slipped down her cheeks. “Derek…” she whispered her throat full of broken glass.

Stiles ran a hand through his hair before dropping it harshly. “I can’t seem to convince either of you that you’re not responsible for every bad thing that happens in this God forsaken place.”

“I’m sorry.” Allison murmured timidly trying desperately not to hide her face in her arms at the defeat in his voice. She winced when he let a short bitter laugh.

“And you’re apologizing for feeling guilty.” He silently chewed his lip for a long moment before seemingly deciding on something. “You’re not your family Allison. What Gerard did, what your mom did, whatever your dad does, what _Kate_ did none of it is your fault.”

She choked back a sob when he, as usual, immediately caught on to what was bothering her. They were fighting for their lives once again, trying to figure out what to do and Derek so trusting of them both now, had spoken without thinking. He wished his family was there to help because he didn’t know what do. Her heart had stopped for a minute reminded again of just how much pain the people she was related to had caused him. She doesn’t remember how she left just that she made up some ridiculous excuse and fled back to her room.

“Sometimes,” she whispered forcing herself to continue when he looked at her in that endlessly caring way of his “sometimes when I can’t breathe from all of the history I try to scrub it off my skin. I found myself once in the shower, scalding hot water and steam thick enough that it was hard to breathe, with my skin raw from trying to purge myself from them. It’s like I can’t escape it no matter what I do.”

He bit out a vicious curse as he took in the broken hopeless look in her glassy chocolate eyes before he reached out and gently pulled her close until she was curled up between his legs, her head pillowed in his neck as he stroked her hair while she let herself fall apart. He pressed a kiss to her head and held her together like he always did humming absentmindedly. She had asked him once what the song was and he blinked looking lost before realizing he’d been making sound. The look on his face when he explained it was a Polish lullaby his mother used to sing when he was upset broke her heart.

“You gonna come in here and sit with us or just lurk outside the door there sourwolf?” His voice startled her before she looked up at the shadow just barely visible in the doorway. Glowing eyes met hers for a moment before he started to back away towards the stairs.

“Wait!” she called her voice torn into shreds “Come here Derek…please?”

He hesitated for a moment unsure of himself before he walked over to stand in front of them. “When I said…I didn’t mean it to sound like--”

“I know.” She interrupted softly with a wounded attempt at a smile. “I want you to be able to talk about them with us. You deserve that.”

She swallowed around the lump in her throat missing the touched look on his face. “It means so much to us, to me, that you felt like you could. It just…it hurts me knowing what she did to you. Knowing I’m so much like someone so cruel, _it hurts_.”

Stiles started to lean forward to catch her as her words caught in her throat blurring her vision again as she fisted her hands in the cushion underneath them. Unable to look at the person in front of her anymore.

“You’re not.” Derek’s voice was soft, wounded by the very idea that she thought of herself that way as he gently lifted her chin with his fingers. “You’re _nothing_ like her.”

“Promise me.” She choked eyes darting wildly from Derek to Stiles. “Promise me if I ever do something like her you’ll stop me. I can’t be like her, I can’t, please”

“Allison, breathe c’mon breathe with us.” Stiles coached gently as Derek sat down next to them Allison clinging to his shirt as she gasped unable to slow down, unable to stop feeling her aunt’s hands on her, hear her voice coaching her in her ear, seeing the vicious look on her face as she showed a bound tortured Derek to her.

“Allison” Derek called sharply unable to stop a growl from entering his voice as he thought of _her_ still hurting people he cared about. He took her face between his hands and clutched slightly until her eyes finally focused on him unaware his own eyes were bleeding alpha red. “You didn’t hurt me, you’ve _never_ hurt me and no one is going to hurt you.”

“But I did!” She cried resting her hand on his shoulder where an arrow once was. “I shot you! And Scott and Boyd and Erica, I stabbed Isaac when she wasn’t even there telling me to hurt them!”

“You were being manipulated,” Stiles interjected fiercely his eyes furious and glowing from within. “You had your father and Gerard telling you what to do, lying to you and _Scott_ ” he hissed the name venomously “refused to tell you the truth when you needed to hear it.”

“And what if I don’t know the truth again?! What if something like that happens again?! I could hurt you, both of you! I could kill you!” Allison shouted trying to struggle out of their arms frantically.

“It won’t happen again _ever._ We won’t let it.” Stiles argued jaw clenched eyes a storm of gold and brown streaking through with silver as his spark reacted violently to the thought of either of them in so much pain. He felt Derek’s hand on his shoulder and shut his eyes harshly taking a breath to calm down the electricity pulsing through his veins.

“You won’t hurt us. You won’t be lied to like that again. We have each other now.” Derek’s voice was steady and relentless the tide of the ocean refusing to back down, his arms refusing to let her go until the piercing fear drained out of her leaving her shaking.

“Please promise me,” she begged her eyes so wide and so full of fear that he felt paralyzed.

“We promise.” Stiles snapped gritting his teeth as his eyes flew open. “We promise that we will protect you and that nothing like that will ever happen again but you will **never** hear us promise to hurt you.”

His voice was dark and furious and so protective it sank into her bones steadying her with its strength until she was calm until she could breathe. Derek’s breath locked in his lungs as the air around the three of them was flooded with the blinding violence of a lover defending its heart. He could feel his claws and fangs itching to escape fighting to be free to spill blood, to rend the flesh of anything or anyone who would dare to harm either one of the people in front of him. His eyes flashed red and a deep growl spilled out of his throat as he repeated himself. “ **No one** will hurt you.”

He re-arranged them until he was able to wrap around them both and waited until they looked at him, his heart clenching at the passionate possessive care and trust in both of their eyes. His alpha power burned through his veins his eyes a fiery red. “ **Either of you**.”

Allison exhaled, exhausted and emotional and _safe_. She hadn’t realized her eyes had closed until she felt them starting to move her to her bed. She clung to the surface of awareness long enough to grab each of their hands, her eyes half-open weakly pulling them towards her pleading. “Stay with me.”

They exchanged a long look and then crawled into the bed on either side of her, Stiles covering her with the blanket by her feet and Derek ghosting a soothing hand down her side until she grabbed it and curled into him. Until he became a solid line of warmth and shelter at her back. Looking sleepily up at Stiles she waited until he looked at her before stretching forward and pressing a soft quick kiss at the corner of his lips.

“Thank you.” She whispered as she finally laid her head down and closed her eyes. She let herself drift away, her fear vanquished by the two men she trusted the most.

Derek held himself rigidly still against the softness in front of him, disbelieving and awed at the level of trust he was being shown.

“Relax.” Stiles murmured heart hurting at the lost look in Derek’s glistening eyes. “You’re safe with us too.”

“Why?” Derek stuttered, bewildered as the simple question brought tears to Stiles eyes. He was unprepared when the younger male lifted a hand to his cheek and the words fell out without his permission. “I’m broken.”

Stiles shook his head. “We’re all broken Derek. There will always be parts of us that are jagged, too shattered to restore. But that’s the thing about having people who love you,” he paused letting his words sink in until he could feel Derek’s gasp under his hand “they fill in all the hollow places until you’re whole again.”

He watched as Derek struggled for something to say. “There’s no price,” he smiled sadly starting to pull back his hand “no exchange is required. It won’t disappear even if you can’t return it okay?”

“Stiles.” Derek choked eyes burning as he held the hand against his cheek captive and slid it down until it rested against his throat praying that he would understand because there were far too many things he was desperate to say and he couldn’t force any of them past his lips. He held his breath as the hand beneath his shook slightly.

“Yeah,” Stiles whispered eyes watery unable to swallow as he licked his lips. “Yeah that works too.”

Allison smiled to herself as she floated peacefully listening to the heartbeat beneath her ear, feeling the other against her back. Kisses tomorrow she thought lazily unaware that she had murmured aloud, asleep before the muffled sounds of surprised laughter reached her ears.

**Author's Note:**

> It started at Stallison but somehow Derek decided to come in and OT3 feels happened. Comments & kudos are loved and appreciated.  
> Posted 10.2.16   
> Edited 5.10.18


End file.
